‘Off Message’
A brand new media podcast hosted by Pat Mahoney.
Via Off Message:
…soon-to-be-gigless (though probably not for long) Lise Hand (top left), political writer with The Times and The Sunday Times, Ireland edition explores with Pat O’Mahony why she thinks the paper [The Times] is shutting [its print edition and scaling down its digital presence] and reveals how she’s dealing with it.
Plus she comes clean on the life of the political hack, the impact of social media on the world she covers, the very real downside of the closure of local newspapers, and much, much more…
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Will have a listen later. Isn’t the Times Ireland to become a digital-only offering with three journalists producing 4-6 articles each a day, up to 18 in total which is roughly what it does today, though you wouldn’t hold out much hope for the quality of those 18 articles.
Jebus, that was hard going. Why did the Times Ireland fold (as a print paper when it goes digital-only on 21 June)? “Brexit” says Lise (I fast forwarded to that bit and hope I’m not doing her wrong by missing something else in the interview), a decision by the Man in London. And that’s that.
You closed because you never managed to produce enough content to tempt more than 10,000 a day to regularly buy a copy. In an ocean of news and views, you were unable to to produce exclusive, headline grabbing news that was relevant to enough people. And you had two years. The latest circulation says you’re struggling to sell 3,000 copies a day. As a regular reader, I’d say your stuff was generally 50-75% of the Irish Times, Examiner and Independent, it needed to be 150% to start out, to build your brand, you didn’t do that, that’s the simple truth of it. It’s really not Brexit. And I’m not pointing fingers, much of your stuff was decent, interesting and original, maybe you weren’t resourced enough or the legal dept put the kaibosh on some juicier stories.
Good luck Lise. You will undoubtedly be a loss to the plurality of press voices.
She’s a survivor, good on radio.
They look like they’ve just bought a house together.
Jaykers that’s Pat Off-the-Rails Mahoney. Time has not been kind to him.
saw him in rathmines recently and thought he looked grand. that show was 25 years ago in fairness
Is time kind to anyone apart from Keanu Reeves?
Pat’s gaff tho.